The Sword and Laser discussion

Well, since I'm asking the question, you can probably figure that my answer is no. It seems like a pretty straight-forward Holmes/Watson take. I feel like the most interesting stuff that's added to the formula is the what if Holmes and Watson were (view spoiler)[on-again, off-again lovers (hide spoiler)] and what if Watson was just a bit more capable and interesting?

The sci-fi seems like it bends-over backwards to be as much like 1870 as possible. There are trains with schedules that seem like they're in print and you have to pick them up to take with you. There are no instant communications (because of the atmosphere) so you get a doorman to run messages or go to the one telephone in the common room or the telegraph station. I suppose that I felt like the sci-fi setting had to be twisted so much to make it seem Victorian that it might as well have been Victorian.

Did you guys gain anything from the sci-fi setting that I'm missing?

Nah. If anything it annoyed me that the author had so many completely implausible things. (I ranted about this on Discord.) Would have worked well as an alt-earth steampunk.

I had the same feeling. I enjoyed the story but it could have been set anywhere.

I concur: the science fiction element is unnecessary. But it *does* distract from the fact that the story fails as a mystery. I go into more in my review from earlier this year: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

My second biggest complaint is that she didn’t think through her set-up. There’s constant talk about limited resources, yet they built several railroads that encircle Jupiter. How many apartment buildings would a couple million miles of steel rails make? I’m guessing a lot. If they need more metal, there are a dozen moons to mine, not to mention all the asteroids.

I am enjoying the story, but I do agree that the author is bending over backwards to make it more mysterious.

Train travel is free, so we can't track people by the ticket sales.

No mobile reception because of radiation. So we can't contact people directly, unless we know where they are.

I agree this could easily have been steam punk.

... and the weather is kinda always stormy like a rainy/foggy London. There's cameras at the zoo, so the technology exists I guess, but not at the train platforms.

The world did seem a bit novel to me at the beginning of the book - cozy and steampunky is a good way to describe it. But by the end I felt like the world was built in the service of the story's necessary constraints, rather than being a world where the story is taking place.

Seth wrote: "... and the weather is kinda always stormy like a rainy/foggy London. There's cameras at the zoo, so the technology exists I guess, but not at the train platforms.

The world did seem a bit novel t..."

I didn't mind this as any world in SF has to be written to match the story. In this case the world does not have anything we would remotely call a police force. There is a great deal more freedom from observation in the society.

The protagonists' are not explaining the world in complete detail and we get gaps.

Seth wrote: "Did you guys gain anything from the sci-fi setting that I'm missing?"

This has shades of the "Planetfall" discussion as to whether it was really a sci-fi novel. My take is that a lot of the responses above aren't addressing the question, they are responding to a question of "Is this sci-fi setting realistic?" and "Does this sci-fi setting make sense or would steampunk, alt-history or something else have been better?" I agree with most of what has been said in that context. But I think that is a different question than "Does the sci-fi setting add anything?"

I don't think this book would make sense as a traditional Victorian-era mystery novel. There are too many things that would not fit in that genre from Preiti and Mossa's relationship (not that it could not have existed but it would be influenced by that society's mores,) their societal roles (investigator and scholar, respectively,) having to deal with constant misogyny while investigating a possible murder, etc. So, in that sense, it must be a genre other than "period-mystery" or else it would read very differently. A sci-fi setting, at a minimum, sets expectations that it won't be "Sherlock Holmes meets Jane Eyre."

Would it fit better into a different genre like steampunk? Yeah, I can see that. I think this particular setting is forced.

Oaken wrote: "Seth wrote: "Did you guys gain anything from the sci-fi setting that I'm missing?"

This has shades of the "Planetfall" discussion as to whether it was really a sci-fi novel. My take is that a lot ..."

About your points about the characters, I agree that it’s a poor fit for the Victorian era, but it could be set today without any changes. They get “telegrams” but those function as texts. To keep the sporadic nature of that information blockade, just say they have spotty coverage. Most of the other stuff is metaphor for current concerns.

Oaken wrote: "Seth wrote: "Did you guys gain anything from the sci-fi setting that I'm missing?"

This has shades of the "Planetfall" discussion as to whether it was really a sci-fi novel."

I think only shades. I wasn't trying to imply this wasn't sci-fi (and I think Planetfall was too). I just feel like this is more of a mystery than a sci-fi story, and feeling that I was wondering why it was set where it was rather than absolutely anywhere else in the time-line.

Oaken wrote: Preiti and Mossa's relationship ..."

This is a great point. If it was Victorian and kept the same characters, there would have to be 100 pages of explanation about their gender and relationship in relation to the times. I suppose it could be an alternate history that left that unexplained, but being in the future probably makes more sense.

Only mystery that also works as sci-fi in my experience has been Niven's "Gil the ARM" stories. I dunno if I'd count the Prefect books as mysteries. Anyhoo, rambling on here, anyone else have stories they think work as both?

Most of the Asimov robot stories are mysteries, like Caves of Steel. You can find an old one dramatized on TV with Dr. Susan Calvin, sporting some fetching glasses at 31 min. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-RX1...

Oh yeah...how could I forget Naked Sun? Which I liked even better than Caves of Steel.

EDIT: That Youtube is awesome. I'll have to watch the whole thing at some point. Love the way the robot says "hyooman" the way the Ferengi do (recently spoofed on Lower Decks.)

John (Taloni) wrote: "Only mystery that also works as sci-fi in my experience has been Niven's "Gil the ARM" stories. I dunno if I'd count the Prefect books as mysteries. Anyhoo, rambling on here, anyone else have stori..."

Besides the aforementioned Asimov, there’s also John Varley. In his various short stories and novels I think he’s covered most subsets of the mystery genre: police procedural (The Barbie Murders), private detective (Irontown Blues), amateur detective (The Phantom of Kansas), etc.

Some others: Wormhole, Drunk on All Your Strange New Words, The Original, not to mention several of Bujold’s Vorkosigan books.

Some of the books S&L has read are likewise mysteries and, in my opinion, good stories: Altered Carbon, A Memory Called Empire and Leviathan Wakes.

I haven’t finished reading the book yet so I can’t comment on the mystery, but I am enjoying the steampunk in space setting. I’m happy with the story and the vibes. Does the sci-fi add anything? Yeah, it adds the vibes, which I am enjoying. I love a unique, vividly imagined setting. It’s like when you watch a film and the costumes are really good. Would the story still work if everyone was wearing boring clothes? Most of the time, yes, but that doesn’t mean the costumes aren’t adding anything.

Goes to show how useless GoodReads classifications are. A search of mystery sci fi books includes such classic mystery novels as Andy Weir's "The Martian" (I guess, "Just exactly how are you going to science the shit out of surviving?" is a mystery?) As well as Jurassic Park (erm, "It's a mystery why you didn't ask yourself if you *should* do it?") And who can forget the Agatha-Christie-endorsed "Dune" (because, "Who exactly is this Maud'Dib fellow, anyways, and why isn't he here yet?")

In terms of real mysteries I would include Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Not as good as HHGttG but still fun.

I quite enjoyed Mieville's The City & the City, as much for his prose as the strange setting of two cities layered on top of one another through consensus as much as anything else.

Jack McDevitt has some interesting mysteries as well, including Firebird and Polaris.

David Brin's Kiln People is another with a private investigator as MC; an interesting world where people can create digital copies of themselves, each of which lasts about a day. At the end of the day copies return and their new memories are merged back to the original so that the copies have a sense of continuity. Shades of Altered Carbon trying to solve a murder when people don't necessarily die (they appear to have been published in the same year which is interesting.)

Oh, there is also Gun, With Occasional Music; it is sci-fi meets hard-boiled detective novel. A strange novel that includes a gun-toting evolved kangaroo that you will either love or hate (the novel, not the kangaroo; who can hate a kangaroo?)

Oaken wrote: "Goes to show how useless GoodReads classifications are. A search of mystery sci fi books includes such classic mystery novels as Andy Weir's "The Martian" (I guess, "Just exactly how are you going ..."

Kind of puts the lie to “the wisdom of the crowd” right?

The other problem is that the list starter can’t curate the list. So many of the lists have random books added by brain-dead readers for who-knows-what reason. I was looking at a list of Vampire books for adults one day that specifically stated it was non-YA, yet the list was overrun with YA vampire books. And The Hunger Games was there, too. Which is not only YA but also doesn’t have vampires. It’s the Boaty McBoatface of lists.

I have to agree with others, this didn't have to be a SF novel. I feel like Older only went the SF route because she wanted to write a Sherlockesque novel with a neurodivergent detective and sapphic elements. Nothing wrong with that, but making it a science fiction novel was an unnecessary choice. Like John Taloni said, this could have been alt-earth steampunk. Pretty sure it could have been gaslamp fantasy too.

But yeah, the science (or rather, the lack thereof) bothers me. Like, how are humans surviving against all the radiation coming off of Jupiter? Heck, how are they surviving at all? The "atmoshields" are somehow plausible to me than like a lightsaber from Star Wars. Pleiti explains that the shields were originally conventional solid things like what you'd expect to see on like Mars, but that people didn't in safe, climate controlled environs, so they replaced them with...porous shields that allows weather and other things to get through.

Quoting a meme, but LOLWUT? None of it makes sense.

There seem to be a lot of negative comments in this thread. I'll have to go contrary. I think the steampunk in an SF setting ambiance works quite well. It may be that the audio version (which I listened to) is better for this story. YMMV. 🤔

I read it with my eyes and while I don’t know if it was “necessary”, I enjoyed the setting. I may read more in this world.

I have a question, is steampunk scifi? I think to me it is and this book felt more like a steampunk novel in space and I am good with that. The interaction of the investigator and the researcher and the rekindling romance seemed right. I would even say that this is a romance novel set in a scifi/steampunk setting.

James wrote: "I have a question, is steampunk scifi? I think to me it is and this book felt more like a steampunk novel in space and I am good with that. The interaction of the investigator and the researcher an..."

I've always thought of Steampunk as a type, or subset, of scifi. To narrow it down further, maybe a subset of "alternate world or history" scifi.

To me steampunk is the boundary between sci-fi and fantasy (kind of like putting Tom and Veronica in a blender with a pair of goggles). It allows authors to go as full fantasy as they wish, but also throw in a bunch of sci-fi tropes. tMoKS works best for me in this area; if you take the science too seriously, it becomes distracting, but, as fantasy with light science trappings, I found it charming.

Steve wrote: "To me steampunk is the boundary between sci-fi and fantasy (kind of like putting Tom and Veronica in a blender with a pair of goggles). It allows authors to go as full fantasy as they wish, but als..."

I agree, plus I’m enjoying the idea of Tom and Veronica in a blender with a pair of goggles 😆

I mean, looking at the whole thing, it definitely could not have worked without the Science Fiction. And really at it's core is the premise that all of these people are basically refugees. So I don't really get how this would have been possible without the Science Fiction

Exactly Jan. Malta’s interests are in displaced communities and the Giant community is a refugee camp.

That’s an interesting point I hadn’t considered. The story could indeed just as well been set in 19th century London 😀

But it didn’t bother me